Breaking: Phone book reveals Palin phone number
RedState's Erick Erickson has a fevered take on our story on Tony Knowles' two-year-old opposition research book on Sarah Palin under the heading "Democrats Release Sarah Palin's Social Security Number."
His item is so wildly misleading that it's hard to know where to start, but the headline seems like a good place.
First, if he knows that Democrats released it, he has better sources than I do.
Second, the Social Security umber is missing its last four digits. That is, it's already been redacted, in an apparent excess of caution by whoever prepared it from public record. You can't get very far with a five-digit Social Security number. (Similarly redacted Social Security numbers are available for a small fee on such sinister tools as Lexis-Nexis.)
The item's first sentence is also inaccurate. "The Politico has received an opposition research file from the Alaska Democrats."
The notion that we received the file from the Alaska Democrats appears to come from sources inside Erickson's head.
Finally, Drudge is teasing the story with the news that Palin's home phone number has been released. You can find the same number in any online telephone book.
Erickson concludes:
It is atrocious that the Democrats would not only seek out Sarah Palin's Social Security number, but release it in opposition research to the press.
We need to know who did this. We also need to know what happened. We also need to know if it was used to bolster the Democrats' opposition research.
We also need to know what we're talking about before we get all breathless on the blogs.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0908/Breaking_Phone_book_reveals_Palin_phone_number.html?showall